1996-11-04 04:00:00 PDT Livingston, Merced County -- When a bypass is completed around the last traffic light on Highway 99 in the San Joaquin Valley next month, it will eliminate one of the most notorious of California's "blood alleys" and mark the end of an era.

From Mexico to the Oregon border, California highways were once littered with dangerous stoplights -- and in one ill- conceived project, a two-directional passing lane that invited head-on collisions.

Most of the blood alleys, including those near San Jose and Santa Rosa, were antiquated intersections that were never upgraded when highways became freeways after World War II. The stoplight in Livingston has been there for at least 50 years and is the only remaining signal in 275 miles of highway from Bakersfield to Sacramento.

"It will be a blessing when that light is finally gone. It's just too dangerous," said Fred Warden, 73, who has seen almost as much carnage on Highway 99 as he did in the Army in World War II. "That's 'no man's land' out there."

Residents of the city of 10,000 have been fighting for decades for a freeway bypass that would allow motorists to glide through town. Caltrans completed a bypass for the southbound lanes in September. The northbound bypass will be opened around De-

cember 13, and the highway's old roadbed will become a thoroughfare for local traffic.

"It is the last segment of Highway 99 being upgraded to freeway standard," said Caltrans spokesman Jim Drago. "At one time there were lights all up and down 99 because it went through all the valley towns, but times have changed."

The project, which replaces the lights with on- and off-ramps at Hammatt Avenue and Winton Parkway, has been on the drawing board since 1958, when Caltrans promised the town that a freeway would be built there the next year.

LACK OF CONCERN

But money shortages, other high-profile projects and a general lack of concern among state officials combined to kill the plans every year. Traffic signals in the nearby towns of Keyes and Denair were bypassed or removed by the end of the 1980s, leaving only the Livingston light.

As the rest of Highway 99 was upgraded, the hazard in Livingston increased. Motorists traveling at high speeds over long distances just did not expect to stop and signs warning of a traffic light ahead didn't seem to help.

In the winter, when thick ground fog cuts visibility to almost zero, cars stopped at the traffic light became sitting ducks for rear-end collisions.

Some of the accidents there were so horrific that they are etched into the memories of the locals. People in Livingston still talk about the time years ago when three people were incinerated in a crash between a car and a big-rig. Old-timers remember when the top of a man's head was sheared off in a collision. He somehow survived.

One that really hit home was the day in 1985 when former City Councilman Wilbur Ratzhoff was killed in a collision with a gasoline tanker.

40 DEATHS SINCE '76

In all, 40 people have been killed at the intersection since 1976, and hundreds more injured. The accident rate on that stretch of road is double the statewide average.

Dangerous highways became a major problem after World War II when Americans had a particular hankering for travel. In 1956, gasoline cost about 25 cents a gallon and a new Ford could be purchased for less than $2,000. Consequently, the number of vehicles quickly overwhelmed the state highway system.

Bob Binger, who retired last week as district manager for Caltrans after 44 years with the transit agency, said he remembers holiday and weekend traffic between 1945 and 1955 backed up on Highway 99 for up to 30 miles.

"It was a terrible mess," he said. "There were a lot of accidents, so we just had to build bigger highways."

One particularly ill-conceived effort to relieve traffic congestion was the insertion around 1945 of a single passing lane in the middle of the northbound and southbound lanes of Highway 99 between Fresno and the San Joaquin River. Motorists in both directions used the lane for passing, with a predictable result.

A GAME OF CHICKEN

"It was quickly labeled 'blood alley' because there were so many serious multivehicle accidents and head-on collisions," Binger said. "It was sort of like a game of chicken out there." That six-mile section was replaced with a four-lane freeway in 1956.

And Highway 99 was hardly the only place where there were blood alleys:

-- A congested stretch of Highway 101 between San Jose and Morgan Hill, called Old Monterey Road, was a glorified country lane with 15 intersections and a string of quaint fruit stands. Between 1973 and 1984, there were 69 deaths there and nearly 750 injuries, mostly from cars drifting into oncoming traffic or getting plowed into as they pulled onto the highway from cross streets or after buying fruit.

Caltrans finally put a stop to the carnage in 1985 when a 12-mile bypass was completed.

-- A 22-mile stretch of Highway 152 east of Los Banos was one of the most deadly roads until a four- lane expressway was built in 1967, according to Caltrans officials. That year alone, there were 25 fatal crashes at intersections and from cross-lane head-ons in those 22 miles.

-- Another deadly section of Highway 101 in Cloverdale known as "Slaughter Alley" was bypassed in 1994, five years after a truck hauling two empty fertilizer trailers veered into oncoming traffic and crushed a station wagon, killing a Santa Rosa baseball coach, two of his sons and three members of his team.

HAVOC ON HIGHWAY

The crash outraged residents who demanded that Caltrans make good on a 1959 promise to reroute the highway out of Cloverdale, where a stoplight created havoc on the highway.

Traffic lights were bypassed on Highway 101 in Novato in 1974 and Geyserville in 1975 to alleviate gridlocked traffic. The last unimproved section of 101 in Santa Barbara, where a traffic signal left over from 1948 created monumental traffic jams, was bypassed in 1991.

There is still a traffic signal on Highway 50 in Placerville, but the number of accidents there does not approach the level on Highway 99 in Livingston or other highways that were improved.

In the Bay Area, the only roadway still referred to as "blood alley" is Highway 37 between Vallejo and Highway 121, but the dangers there aren't caused by traffic signals. Most of Highway 37 is a narrow two-lane road that cannot be widened because it is next to protected marshland. Last year, fines were doubled and Caltrans installed a median barrier along much of the stretch in an effort to make the highway safer.

LAST OLD HIGHWAY LINK

The Livingston stoplight is the last link to a highway system that connected country towns that sprang up around railroad stations. What is now known as Highway 99 was originally a railroad service road used by horse-drawn wagons.

Binger said portions of 99 are still exactly where they were when it was designated a state highway in 1909 and the pavement in those areas is as much as six feet thick. The retired Caltrans manager said he recently found a chunk of pavement called Warrenite that was used in the 1920s and '30s.

There were traffic signals in every town, and motorists stopped regularly for gas, soda pop or a slice of homemade pie.

"99 has always been THE road that everybody took and it was fun because you got to see all the towns along the way," said Warden, the World War II vet. "I wouldn't mind seeing the towns like they used to be, but not the freeway."

Despite some concern from local business owners that drivers will no longer see them, most Livingston residents say the bypass is the best thing to happen in town since the Foster Farms chicken plant set up shop.

"With the highway bypass we are now as good as any other town," said Danny Au, 50, a clerk in his family's store, Bo's Market, for the past 30 years. "We can now forget about our highway problem and concentrate on improving business and making the city better."

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Today's "Commuter Chronicles" continues a weekly series of stories exploring the practical aspects of transportation and commuting in the Bay Area. Each Monday, the series features articles aimed at getting behind the political controversies and real-life vexations that readers face every day on buses, trains and BART, highways and byways.

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